Ok, now for some real controversy.<br><br>I hated, absolutely loathed, the 2nd Star Wars film. I hated it so much that I thought even the first one was better (in part because of its almost unconscious racial stereotypes, which ultimately were too funny for words). This Clones business was slow-moving, positively boring as far as I was concerned, which in this kind of film is just unforgivable. The plot lines of the two major actions were almost undecipherable. The acting was just intolerable--for filmdom's sake, who ever said that Lucas could write love dialogue or direct love scenes???? Even the special effects were, I thought, lame. And the "laugh lines" were obviously "laugh lines"--I kept expecting someone to pop up with a banner reading, [color:blue]LAUGH NOW</font color=blue>. And man o man is Lucas taking himself seriously now, boys and girls! I mean the effect of having these films come out 25 or so years after the original three is to give the two sets of films a kind of Old Testament/New Testament relationship, skewed, to be sure, because what should be the OT is newer than what should be the NT. The closest analogue is the relationship between Shakespeare's first and second tetralogies--but Shakespeare has the grace not to take himself nearly so seriously as Lucas does.<br><br>Did I say that I loathed the film? <br><br>edit: some spelling and some additions to make sure you noticed I loathed the film <br><br>2nd edit: One good thing from all this: I'm now convinced that Harrison Ford is one of the great actors of all time.<br><br>Great wits are sure to madness near allied.--John Dryden, "Absalom and Achitophel"<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by yoyo52 on 05/27/02 01:43 AM (server time).</EM></FONT></P>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>One good thing from all this: I'm now convinced that Harrison Ford is one of the great actors of all time.<p><hr></blockquote><p>Funny thing. I said the very same thing when I was walking out of the theater with my kids, and they jumped on it and agreed 100%. The fact that Ford was paired with Sean Connery as Indiana Jones and his father simply drives home the fact that he's one of the greats of all time. Who else could be an energetic action figure next to a staid and bumbling old Sean Connery? In fact, I think if Harrison Ford had not happened onto George Lucas's original sets, the entire Star Wars tetrilogy might never have gotten off the ground past the original movie. The new movies desperately need a Harrison Ford. Hmm... there are no other Harrison Fords. They need HIM! <br><br>Shooshie<br><br>Shooshie's Stuff

'Attack of the Clones' is infinitely better than 'Phantom Menace.'<br><br>For one, less Jar-Jar, more dark side and Yoda kicks ass!<br><br>You really have to suspend your disbelief to go to a Star Wars movie...if you're into Shakespeare and critically acclaimed films...perhaps anything George Lucas does would not be your cup of tea. <br><br><br><br>

I wonder how many people are like my wife & I...? People who have grown up with the original three Star Wars movies... People who have had a bond with the original three, but who have never seen Phantom Menace or this new one? <br><br>I am not sure why, but we were never really interested in the Pahantom Menace. Perhaps it was the poor reviews. I think we originally wanted to see the movie, but sort of decided against going to it after people said it was a faint glimmer of the past trilogy. We were also contemplating seeing this new installment, but after hearing other peoples reviews, this one seems to also lack the soul of the others...<br><br>Perhaps for my wife these latest two Star Wars movies lacked one other important thing: Harrison Ford <br><br>

I agree with you for the most part. However, if these last two SW movies weren't called "Star Wars" they would probably be much better movies in the eyes of the viewing public. What we expect these things to live up to is just plain impossible. The acting was incredibly lousy in this one... I mean, I'm not sure if I've ever seen acting this bad before, but if I have, this one tops it. However, it still wasn't "the worst movie I ever saw." <br><br>The story itself had one giant, gaping, incredibly obvious hole in it - and that completely blew it for me toward the end. <br><br>Giant, gaping, incredibly obvious hole:<br>If BobaFett's father was the "original" that was used to create all the clones used to help the Jedi, (and Fett knew it). Why didn't he tell the Evil leaders who were creating the other clones? They acted so surprised to see the clones... didn't it ever occur to Mr Fett to say, "Hey guys, um, the Jedi used me as a model to create umpteen million clones, so maybe we should hold off a little while on this galaxy-wide take-over thingy!"<br><br>Oh well, it's Star Wars...<br><br>By the way, did anyone notice that the "Jedi Clones" look like Storm Troopers? Did anyone notice that the leader of the Republic looks incredibly similar to the Dark Lord? Did anyone notice that the Republic ships look like the Empire Battle Cruisers, and they even used the "Empire" music score when showing them? Wow, I mean, we all know what happens, but they sure made it obvious for all the people in the cheap seats, eh?!!!<br><br>[color:red]semicolon dash parenthesis</font color=red>

Your review is nearly dead on until you say, "Even the special effects were, I thought, lame."<br><br>Now you're letting your frustration get carried away. The effects were incredible. If they had truly been lame, you would have walked out. We all would have, since there was NOTHING else worth staying for as you aptly point out.<br><br>The initial 'car' chase is post Blade Runner iCandy. The 'Gladiator' like sequence in the end with the animals was better than the Gladiator movie (IMHO). The battle scenes were the most elaborate of all Star Wars movies combined. And the minefield bombs that went silent then TWWWWAAAAAANNNNNGGGGG was the coolest effect I've seen in some time.<br><br>I point this all out because these effects make the movie worth seeing in the cinema. But acting? Story? Coherence? Lame-o!<br><br>Do you rhumba? Excellent! Now pick a rhumba and sit down.. GM

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>Now you're letting your frustration get carried away. <p><hr></blockquote><p><br>Well, maybe. I guess I just dozed off from time to time and all I got of the special effects were the loud bangs every now and then <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>You really have to suspend your disbelief to go to a Star Wars movie...if you're into Shakespeare and critically acclaimed films...perhaps anything George Lucas does would not be your cup of tea. <p><hr></blockquote><p><br>I'm perfectly happy to suspend disbelief. It's just that these two films didn't deserve suspension of disbelief. And I disagee 100% with the idea that someone who likes Shakespeare can't like things like Star Wars. Shakesepare was (and when well done still is) popular entertainment. There's lots of popular entertainment films that I think are well done. These just don't happen to be in that group.<br><br>Great wits are sure to madness near allied.--John Dryden, "Absalom and Achitophel"

I agree with yoyo.<br><br>I felt that the boreing scenes was way to long and the battle scenes were way to short. Plus the acting did not convience me at all. It just made for either a bad "love story" or a bad "war movie" I mean which one was it?<br><br>The Clones did lay down the foundation for the next episode but it was very clumsy. Unlike the original 3 Lucas was able to weave in the love affair between Solo and the princess very nicely but lost that with the Clones.<br><br>Better writting or better acting or both would made the movie.<br><br>

The idea that this episode is laying down the groundwork for the next episode is what I said to excuse episode one. I've come to conclude that Lucas himself is thinking that way, and that's part of the problem--maybe all of the problem--with these films. He just can't be free to be imaginative because the outcome is already predetermined, and for the sake of being consistent with his mythology, he's obliged to take incredibly predictable steps.<br><br>The first movies were not at all like that. I confess that I was totally surprised when, in the first trilogy, Darth Vader turns out to be the Dark Father (anyone who's studied the history of the English language, and its connections to German in particular, can recognize the backwards migration of consonant sounds--and I guess I should have seen it coming). I was also surprised by the quotations from the epic tradition in those first three movies. When Luke, being trained by Yoda, goes into the "underworld" and there meets Darth Vader as his alter ego, I was just blown away by the deft use of the epic tradition (Odysseus and Aeneas, Dante and Satan all take that voyage, with different outcomes) and its marriage to psychoanalysis.<br><br>And those first three films were not heavy-handed (usually) in using those old, powerful schticks. You don't have to see the echo of Aeneas to enjoy what happens to Luke, for instance.<br><br>My wife and I were talking about the newer films as opposed to the first three, and she pointed out that you could see the first three films at a whole bunch of different levels. Little kids liked them because they were adventure stories. I was 24, in gradutate schol, and (in-my-not-so-humble-opinion at the time; I've learned better since ) pretty sophisticated when I saw the first Star Wars, and I loved it, but not just because it was a great adventure story. I loved the weaving in of mythic elements, for instance. I also loved the way Lucas used the language of film history in presenting the story. I mean, Han Solo and Leia were like a screwball comedy team married to a John Wayne western. Luke was the weak link in those films, I thought--but even Luke you could think of as a kind of nod to the film tradition. An ingenue, male rather than female, but an ingenue nonetheless. And from that point of view the three films consituted a kind of coming-of-age narrative in which Luke was the central character. The incest motif was brilliant in complicating that aspect of the films, and Luke's interest in Leia worked beautifully in conjunction with the screwball romance of Han and Leia. And that romance in turn worked beautifully into the adventure/war story. Everything just simply worked well together.<br><br>The contrast with the current crop is just sad.<br><br>Great wits are sure to madness near allied.--John Dryden, "Absalom and Achitophel"

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